Bliss, Right?
by Wr3n
Summary: Some melding, a day off, a thought. Shepard is content... *OnEsHoT*


_***M**__elding_ was kind of a big deal for us. Nowadays, Liara and I shared nervous smiles together before actually doing it, but it was only because we knew _melding_ had become…well, sort of potent.

A long time ago, we had spoken together, coyly and in a special, marking sort of way that was fondly remembered, about how our passion, our care for one another really stemmed from the unassuming, well-tended honesty we felt and offered one another. And in our lines of work, that was an understandable, important mechanism, considering we both seemed to be working on borrowed time. All the fucking time. But _melding_? It was a whole other thing of honesty itself. It was a big deal; it had _become_ a big deal, because it was _the_ single most honest thing Liara and I could express together. _Melding_ was not words painstakingly conveyed in hushed tones to one another, it wasn't sex, or a subtle _sense_ of familiar amity, it was something modestly greater than that, and completely unlike. _Melding_ was flawless, precious harmony between us, a gentle and consenting mode where two became _one_ entirely, on an almost freely, deeply spiritual note. It was our personalities, their depths, and expansive individualisms magnified and donned by the both of us, all in such a simple but overwhelmingly elegant, weaving sort of way, that only made _melding_ seem all the more pure, and developed, than any other form of expression. _Melding _was a comprehension, an almost tangible grip on each other, achingly heart-satisfying and more beautiful and beneficial than could ever be described.

With Liara, _melding_ had eventually become a defended facet of life, appreciated warmly, respected and then given a valued place in our relationship. Because, well, it really was just that important. Especially to T'Soni, but also to me, because I could _see_, awed and ponderingly, for myself what it seemed to do for her. I began to realise, to grasp strangely, just how it supplemented her, how it filled and tugged out a kind of growth in Liara and her experience-hungry Asari soul. Soon, we noticed, meditatively, happily, that _melding_, had been transforming along with us the whole time. And now I knew, could see, just how changed it had become while looking back into the recent past.

_Melding_ had been so funnily, utterly different once. At the very first, kind of like getting a checkup from a doctor who wasn't Chakwas, I thought, forcedly nonchalant, a little unsure, somehow alarming and weird. An image, and feeling that only made me laugh and shake my head now. But back when I was fresh news, the 'human' Spectre and new Commander of the SR1 Normandy frigate, and only after, to my utter gratefulness and sheer dumb-ass luck, at last finding Liara abashedly trapped inside a toppling, geth-filled ruin, our first joining that she had performed in front of the Normandy crew had been politely tentative, almost uncertainly very careful. Like…being looked over by a doctor. Each piece of Prothean data, and only that data, in my brain had been platonically examined by her. There was really nothing else passed between us but a cool sharing of work-related, fragmented images and screaming, desolated Prothean emotions. But things changed with Liara and me, thank goodness. My Prothean ties, my subconscious will to somehow obstinately absorb them and keep them without dying or going nuts, interested Liara's insatiable curiosity. And even that interest of hers was appealing, enough then, to provoke me into my own kind of slightly wary, wondering curiosity of her. We got closer, friendlier, frivolously flirtatious, especially after a silly and awkward conversation that I _still _ enjoyed teasing Liara about sometimes, and it was all because of those few, chance, simple _melding's_. I was lucky even then, and I knew, I was still a lucky punk. If not for the Prothean Beacons, discovering Liara and actually experiencing her ability for parthenogenesis myself…I might still be a world-troubled, lonely, hard-ass Alliance marine type. And what a thought that was…one that would excite my old, squeeny-voiced Physics teacher if I extrapolated anymore about it, but only did now to scare me a little and put me slightly off-kilter with my head cocked.

Before going to Ilos though, there was our first time, spent really, finally alone together. And Liara and I made love, freely after a delicate, very gently considerate conversation together. I still remember grinning at her warmly, stupidly, with my heart in my throat, when Liara told me that she'd never been more sure about something in her whole life. So we did, both of us feeling helplessly drawn and achingly fond of each other. We did, in a time of galaxy-wide chaos and a time of slightly fearful, uncertain need to just be honest while we still had the flickering chance. And it'd been so good. But that wasn't all, the cherry on the cake had been Liara _melding _with me again, and I had been so completely, fucking shell-shocked, so astonished, to feel that it had somehow switched that night, into something very titillating, something so pleasantly moving and wildly, ridiculously different than what it had been before. That _melding_ had been so satisfying, so quenching for us, and delightfully winning, to me. A real first. Absolutely nothing like anything to do with the thought of a doctor! And I knew _melding_ was very special then, and I _understood_ why. Which, was an important, illuminating step. And Liara and I taking that step, firstly together? - was nothing short of a little miracle in itself.

_Melding_ morphed quickly along with us after that. Straight into becoming something inspiring and impressive, like watching a vid of a quiet nebula, growing its way into a star. _Melding_ was easier now, nakedly clear and unique. We both craved it together, in our own ways, finding it a solace to see one another in another way, a way completely affectionate, truthful, and forever enlightening. Plus, for me, it was gratifying, knowing that it always gave T'Soni something to turn to, something to remember if things got hard. There was nothing like it, it's true, but we never went crazy about it or dared excess in it. It only ever happened spontaneously, and that's what ultimately kept it alive and thriving like it was, I think. That and, well, just us being us.

It made me grin to think, that a while ago, _melding_ had been like stepping into a sweetly cooled whirlwind, busy with frivolous thoughts and heady, funnily confusing emotions. But now, it had evolved gigantically. It was more like jumping from solid ground into a realm of zero gravity, all dispersed with not too far off, clarified emotions you could imbibe, with languorous and deep, elusively, almost discoverable thoughts, and well-held memories that were accompanied with their every complimenting sense. Oh yeah. _Melding_ was a big, big deal in a wholesome Asari relationship, and not in a one-sided kind of way at all. And for Liara and me, huge. That was putting it lightly. For a human, as a human, I wondered how I, or anyone, got along without it…that's just how real and good it was. Sometimes I'd find myself wondering, looking around the Citadel at passerby's, and I would think to myself, 'I wonder who of them knows what, 'What have you been up to?' or, 'What was _that_ like for you?' or, 'Yeah, I think I'm really falling for you,' _feels_ like?'

For me, I thought, a little hesitantly, nervously and mostly to myself, _melding_ was kind of like getting a present from someone. It was that same sickly-sweet, surprised, tingly kind of feeling in my gut and heart, every time. Because I was only ever handed Liara, just as she was. And that's all I ever really wanted or needed from her. She knew that of course, in her own quiet, timorously smirking way, so _melding_ began on a free, timidly patient, innocently desirous note. A note, that could still make me want to sigh like an ass, like a dumb, love-struck teenager. But, I didn't mind acting like that once in a while. Liara probably needed to see that in me _more_ often, for herself, and I did let her, because that pretty much _was_ what I was for her. Dumb. And a little questioningly lost, pleasantly overwhelmed sometimes. Getting Liara, made all the butterflies dance in my stomach, how she just gave me everything in those moments trustingly, her heart, her mind, her spirit, was something literally breathtaking to me, and I was allowed to just sink into everything about her that I treasured, or wanted to see again. It was priceless. Being able to see, to feel, Liara as I knew she was, all kindness and contemplation, indomitable purity and so much bravery, everything I could only say was, in the end, to me, somehow good, something so stark that I inherently wanted to protect in such a messed up, completely uncertain universe. That thanks to, well, imperfection and the goddamned Reapers, anyway. But Liara was my confidence in things, and seeing her during _melding_, only assured my feeble hopes that things just might turn out alright despite...everything else.

Yet, the magnitude of it all, did, obviously, scare me a little. Just a little though. Admittedly. Only because, I didn't want to mess up somehow. But, yes, I knew, you really couldn't possibly mess things up in a _melding_, since you were just being you, unhidden, feeling another's soul nakedly pressed up, entwining into your own. But old habits die hard, feelings too, so _melding_ was always for a split-second at the start, pleasantly, strangely terrifying. Like taking that vital shot through a scope, you just _wish_ for it to get where you aimed, but you're never really, completely sure. And, I never really _knew_ what Liara did, I could only _feel_ her in there. So I always hoped that she wouldn't look _too_ much into anything that could diminish, or burden, or disappoint her somehow. You can't hide those things while you're _melding_. But if Liara ever found anything in me that was upsetting, and I knew that she _must_ have along the way at least somewhere, she never said anything about it afterward. When _melding _was done, it was done. That was a thing we both chose and respected about _melding_. That's another thing about it that tugged at my wondering human-heartstrings. It is so revealing, that both enjoiners just have to become adaptive, and forgiving, this was something to me that was a little, or to be honest, a lot special. _Melding_ is a learning, loving experience, freeing, in how everything is sought and felt, sometimes resolved and then inwardly accepted, by both people in the _meld_. And that was a profound cornerstone to me, honest acceptance, an irresistible, selfless ability to take in everything about someone, and love it all at once, without restrictions, or afterthought…

Shit. I could almost quiver, bodily, from thinking about stuff like that. But it's true, and there it is. _Melding's _a big deal like that. And Liara and I both seemed to jump into its world of zero gravity together, willingly while we still had the time, those small pieces of snatched, borrowed time, to do it. And this said something of our relationship to me. It was a for real thing, it wasn't going to stop anytime soon, and it was only growing, blooming. Just what that meant, though, at the end of the day, I childishly tried, really hard not to dissect. It seemed like it would be bad luck to do that. Plus, I just liked surprises…especially when Liara was involved._***  
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><strong>_**M**y breath hitched in my chest as I blinked my slightly dry, now coherent eyes. My heart fluttered, like a tiny bird beneath my sweat-dappled, naked breast, and I heard myself grunt a little as Liara flopped, exhausted and blissfully spent, down against me. I grinned helplessly at her snug, haphazard fit, and closed my eyes shut for a moment. Breathing quiet and deep through my nose to slow my heart down, I wrapped my arms gracelessly around Liara.

She breathed, hot and heavy from her fatigue after the _melding_, and her clean breath brushed warmly against my neck. Her own heartbeat, I felt against my skin, thumped quickly and hard unlike my own. Coming out of _melding_ was like waking from a lively, bestirring dream for me, but for her, it was like she'd just run a marathon through a labyrinth. Smiling blindly away, feeling thoroughly lightened and really, genuinely good, I shifted us a little, righting myself beneath Liara's naked, nearly prone and wetly perspiring body.

_Melding_ naked was, I thought with a quiet smirk, a personal touch of my own. I just liked doing it that way when we could. Plus it did serve to cool both of our bodies down afterwards, without Liara having to go away, and force herself up to change into something fresh. I'd put a stop to that long ago, at first telling her I didn't care about sweat-spots, and she'd countered that well, she _did_. After that didn't work, I just started peeling whatever she was wearing off, without saying anything. And now, she could just doze off if she wanted. Now I thought, funnily, tenderly to myself, she kind of expected and waited for me to undress us before _melding_. It was like remembering to hang a towel on the rack, _before_ having a shower.

I felt myself still slightly smiling. Simply savouring the thick, heady silence, the profound, pining remembrance of our latest session together. I mulled quietly, that tonight, Liara had been, or rather, _felt_ pretty active, somehow spirited, and thrillingly adventurous. My head was still reeling, spinning just a little, from the ghostly, lacing feel of her previous sense of play, and I wondered idly what she'd been doing. But I decided, quickly, absently, to leave things as they were, silent and warm and plainly, tiredly satisfied. I really was content with just remembering her lighthearted mood, it was unique, thoroughly interesting, and definitely reward enough to stave off my absent curiosity.

I let my hand stray from Liara's wetted, sighing body, to touch at her face pressed along my chest and shoulder. I swept my thumb over the supple plane of her cheek, thinking things couldn't be better than how they were at this moment, simply spent lying with a person intimate and loved, feeling somehow faintly harmonious, and blankly relieved of outside, niggling thoughts. Absently though, I did decide, very vaguely off in a corner of my mind somewhere, that maybe I really should look into getting my own apartment somewhere…this whole Loft thing at the Normandy, _was_ kind of ridiculous for a woman my age…

"Gnuh," Liara murmured then, thankfully interrupting my wandering thoughts, her soft lips stirring close against my skin. She languidly managed to curl her arms tighter around me, and using my shoulders like a chin-up-bar, she too shifted, just a little, endearingly closer. "Goddess," she croaked whisperingly, shaking her head a little. "I would say something, but there really is…no need anymore…" she sighed.

I grinned crookedly at her words, and the easy, mollifying meaning of them. She was totally right. There was never much to say, or anything that really needed to be said, after _melding_. Still caressing her calmly, almost absently, simply for sooth, I mumbled my agreement. "Mm. It's a shame Chakwas isn't here to have a look at you though, huh?" I jibed. "Just in case?" I muffled, inexplicably remembering the old days on the SR1, _melding _with Liara after finding each beacon as well as Shiala and the Thorian cipher.

Liara blurted out a light, open laugh against me. "Oh. I was so embarrassed going to her…" she mumbled quietly in her rich, low voice. "And you made me do it, every time, _Commander Shepard_," she said, sardonically, amusedly mouthing my title in a lowered, lovely chiding-like voice.

I laughed at her words, at my former naïve self, and smiled deprecatingly, shaking my own head. "Pft. I had no idea what was going on," I mumbled jauntily, through wisps of laughter. "Did I, _Doctor T'Soni_?" I murmured, taking her bait, in kind.

Liara giggled wearily and shook her head, she sighed wistfully, deeply and tiredly, then nestled down more comfortably. I simply held her as she quieted for a moment. But then unable to constrain myself, and the almost bubbling out laughter swelling up, lamely inside of me, I spoke, flatly. "Well, not until you _really_ popped my _melding_-cherry at least…"

Liara quietly shook her head again. She sighed exasperatingly. But she did eventually take _my_ bait, and I felt, as well as heard the obvious notes of a smile in her words. "Goddess," she whispered smilingly, reprovingly, continuing to shake her head at me. "You are so vulgar."

I laughed quietly for a moment, then delicately shifting, I decidedly rolled us both onto our sides. The crisp sheets of Liara's bed, leg-mussed and shuffling, rasped familiarly at the movement. "One of us has to be…" I intoned, mildly jesting. Facing her now though, I glanced deeply at Liara, contentedly, openly, as she tiredly and prettily smiled, blinking her soft, glimmering blue eyes dreamily at me. Powerlessly, on a fleeting whim, I grasped her, and leaning forward, with the pillows crumpling, hissing madly at my movements, I placed a soft, gentle kiss on Liara's lips. She responded though and rather quickly, to my surprise, and deepened the gesture, pressing herself ever so slightly closer, and she sighed happily through her nose against my lips while her slender arms wound their way evermore around me.

But I was instantly unsure, a little repentant. Not wanting her to exert herself after _melding_, or to think that I wanted something more than what she'd already given, I smiled inside our kiss, breaking it unexpectedly short, with our lips smacking wetly when I did. A somewhat harsh, fixing, and openly primal sound that echoed out into the general silence of Liara's immaculate apartment. It, that noise, and the yearning of the kiss, I felt, made both of our closely pressed abdomen's constrict from surprise, just a little.

"Um. We should sleep..." I murmured unsurely, swallowing, tasting Liara's natural perfume of sweat, and wet, on my lips. I held her beautiful, soft face, slightly away in my hands, though my fingers couldn't seem to stop from slowly moving against her skin, while she looked at me languorously, playfully. I felt my heart beginning to pound out a beat, matching hers that thudded against my own breasts, betraying me, and all simply from our short, but unexpectedly eager kiss. A realisation that made me think again, critically, flickeringly, about how I was acting, but pretending that, no I wasn't acting, like a dumb, yearning teenager back in the Alliance corps who could get her kicks just from sweatily holding hands…But I so was, that was the thing.

Liara, with her hands sliding lower over the slopes of my back, clasped commandingly at my hips. She simultaneously pulled me, and herself, closer together. Then turning a little, she swiftly moved us, and laid slightly over me again, with her firm, fleshy thigh slipping decidedly between my own. Smiling softly, she bent to recapture my lips. I was accidentally, hopelessly attentive to her, overtly, but quietly. She undulated her lips rousingly, gracefully, against my seething mouth, our lips unhurriedly gliding here, and slipping a little there. I remembered invigoratingly, recalled knowingly, Liara's playful, triumphantly fulfilled mood inside of the _meld_. And I wondered again, just what she'd been doing in there, and if _this_ contact, this blithe hunger, was its aftermath, or muse. As Liara stirred over me kissing, hands beginning to drift, achingly indolent, but intent, stopping only for short gasps of warm breath passed onto each other's lips, I dizzily managed to stop myself. But just barely.

I smilingly turned my head, feeling my own dark long hair splayed against the pillow I rested on. I pretended, despite myself, that I needed a breath and to laugh encouragingly and satisfyingly. Liara though, comfortably, simply began mouthing a gentle, loving path of feathery kisses down my jaw, then my neck. I was prickling, warming, but decided I should probably let her know what I was trying to still think about. "Liara," I whispered, sincerely breathless, and low, "We can-we can go to bed, you know?" I tried, but she only stopped to hover over and look down at me, and as I gazed at her, I felt, somewhere near where her hand was beginning to press down along my lean, tensing stomach, like something was tickling, and beginning to tingle tantalizingly, heatedly.

Liara smirked at me funnily, and then I finally smiled back after a moment, letting out an all too knowing bit of laughter as I realised, at last, dazedly, groaningly, just what she was doing. She bent close and spoke quietly into my grinning lips. "I'm not afraid to use a Singularity on you if I have to, Shepard…" she whispered.

I cocked a dark eyebrow as Liara gently swarmed me, kissed me again, with her clever hands starting to thrum and glow ever so slightly all over me. "_Now_, who's being vulgar?" I teased between kisses.

There was no reply to be made though, leaving only the fragmented silence, innocently desirous, excitedly balanced, given and received, gently absorbed motions, which emanated smoothly-sweet and simple from both Liara and myself. I knew our _melding_ was somehow at the root of all this. I knew that Liara must have found, or felt something a little different in us tonight. And, of course, I was instinctively, obliviously, very, very glad that she had. But I also knew, respectfully and supportively, that I couldn't ever _really_ know for sure. And I'd never ask. But I could guess. I supposed to myself, distractedly, happily, that something like, oh maybe, love and not seeing each other for over two months, _could_ have a significant role, just as well as a delving bit of restorative _melding _did...

But, ignorance was bliss right?


End file.
